Well that was quick – the Kiva project I’m sponsoring has reached its goal and the cow will hopefully be soon on its way to the butcher shop :) Repayments start in January so will keep things updated here as well.

I’ve been toying with the idea about micro-lending through Kiva for a couple years now, and with Christmas on the way I decided to finally take the plunge. This is something I can support: a butcher in Uganda who wants a loan to buy a cow :)

Edit: Apparently the link to a given micro-loan applicant is not constant, so I've removed the banner. Again, a few things on the site that need some polish.

I spent a good hour or more looking through the requests and to be honest a lot of them just don’t seem noteworthy. I don’t really want to support someone who is running a store so they can buy more pop to resell. Nor do I necessarily think it’s good for someone to request $1000 for a saw when it seems like the money will go to something else. There is a lack of properly-written scenarios on a whole and not enough clarity on what exactly the money will be used for.

Regardless, I'm planning on following this for a few months and making a loan every paycheque or two provided I can find something that seems worthwhile. I’ll post updates here whenever they happen.

You would think that by now I would have stopped being surprised about the crap that companies will put in our foods. Still, every now and then I enjoy having the chance to complain about things and today seemed like a good time :)

I decided to make a cream of broccoli soup for supper and here were the ingredients:

1/4 cup unsalted butter (or so)

1/4 onion, chopped

2 tablespoons arrowroot flour

600 ml chicken broth

350 ml 18% cream

salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper

1 head broccoli

In case anyone is curious, the instructions are quite simple. Melt the butter and sauté onions until soft. Slowly mix in the flour till it thickens (yes, just a basic roux). Add all the other ingredients. Cover and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Turn heat to low and simmer for at least 15 more minutes.

Let’s take a second to compare this to a can of cream of mushroom soup from the “wonderful” folks over at Campbell’s.

water, fresh mushrooms (ok)

modified corn starch, enriched wheat flour, soybean or canola oil, corn starch (don’t even get me started on how bad all of these are)